


Pull You Down A Star

by sterekcrush



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Erica Reyes, Alive Vernon Boyd, Alpha Derek Hale, BAMF Stiles, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Kidnapped Derek Hale, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, brief mention of rape, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 17:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12063354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterekcrush/pseuds/sterekcrush
Summary: It's Stiles' last year of college, and he can't wait to go home to his fiance and his pack and start making a life together. Then some witches come to town and push his timeline up a little. He mostly doesn't mind.





	Pull You Down A Star

It’s 2:00 am when Stiles comes up from his Adderall- and finals-induced fog, blinking out of an hours-long term paper-writing marathon to take stock of the sudden feeling of dread gripping his chest.

At first he thinks it’s just the Red Bulls catching up to him, but it feels a little more like the panic that used to grip him in the long, dark months after his mother’s death. He takes a deep breath, then another, and when his lungs don’t start to constrict he figures he’s not about to devolve into a full-blown panic attack.

Still, he can’t shake the feeling that there’s _something_ wrong, and if it’s not his college courses or irrational panic brought on by stress, there must be something wrong with someone else. Stiles reaches inside of himself, feeling around with his mind for the bonds that tie him to the rest of the pack.

He’s become much more attuned to them since he went away to college. Back when they were all living in each other’s pockets it was easy not to notice them, humming in the background like a warmth making him feel safe and happy and _home_. Leaving for school meant the pack bonds stretched thin, and at first Stiles panicked that something was wrong, that by taking the full ride to Berkeley he’d damaged them somehow.

Derek had to talk him down over the phone, assuring Stiles that while he was feeling the distance from his pack, he wasn’t damaging anything by leaving. He promised Stiles that he’d get used to it eventually and that everyone else was going through the same thing, though as the Alpha’s mate and a magic user, it was a little more intense for Stiles.

He’d taken a survey of the rest of the pack anyway, only to discover that Derek was right and everyone else was feeling it too. After that Stiles organized weekly Skype sessions with the entire pack, including their reluctant Alpha, though once he realized how much it helped the pack members who were away from home, he came around.

That, along with frequent trips home to see his mate and the pack members who’d stayed behind in Beacon Hills, had gotten Stiles through three and a half years of college. He only has one more semester left, and then he’ll be home with Derek and their pack for good.

He still misses all of them all the time, but this is the first time Stiles has felt as though something’s actually _wrong_. So even though it’s 2:00 am and he should definitely wait until morning, Stiles reaches for his cell phone and presses speed dial #1.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters while he waits for the line to connect, hand pressed against his heart to try and mitigate the pain that’s starting to get worse. “Derek, answer your goddamn phone.”

As soon as he says it the line connects, but instead of his mate sounding disgruntled and sleepy, a female voice floats over the line. “Hello?”

“Who is this?” Stiles demands, heart pounding with fear now, because why is some random chick answering Derek’s phone at 2:00 in the morning?

“Oh, I’m just a friend of Derek’s,” she says, voice light and breezy and melodic, and Stiles pictures that bitch Jennifer and feels his teeth grind.

“Well, I’m his fiance, and I’d really like to talk to him, so can you put him on the phone?”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she says with a musical little laugh that kind of makes Stiles want to set her hair on fire. “He’s a bit...tied up at the moment, but I’ll be sure to tell him you called.”

There’s another laugh, then the click of the line going dead, and it takes everything in Stiles not to smash his phone. Instead he dials another number, and this time when the line connects, the voice is definitely disgruntled.

“Stiles, what the hell?”

“I know, sorry, but listen,” he says, shoving his feet into shoes as he grabs his Jeep keys and his wallet. “I just called Derek and some strange woman answered his phone.”

Erica sounds much more awake now, and in the background he can hear Boyd grumbling. “Stiles, Derek would never…”

“I know,” he says again, because if there’s one thing he has complete confidence in, it’s Derek Hale’s loyalty. “Which is why I’m on my way home. Can you and Boyd head out, sniff around the loft, see if you can figure out if they were there?”

“On it.”

“Thanks. I’ll call again when I get home.”

He hangs up his phone and shoves it in his pocket, then he locks his dorm room and takes the stairs two at a time until he reaches the ground floor. His Jeep’s parked in a student lot ten minutes from the dorm, but he pushes a little of his Spark into his run and makes it there in three.

The two-hour drive to Beacon Hills takes just a little over an hour and twenty minutes, and he’s thankful for the lack of traffic and the lack of cops along the way. He spends the drive debating whether or not to call his dad; on the one hand, they could use the extra backup, especially if there’s more than just the one girl to deal with. But he knows his dad doesn’t like to get involved in the supernatural if he doesn't have to, and Stiles has worked really hard to keep his dad and Derek’s relationship as close to a normal father-in-law/son-in-law situation as he can.

In the end he decides not to call his dad. Instead he pulls up to the loft, and when he doesn't see Erica's car he pulls out his cell phone again, dialing Erica’s number for the second time tonight.

“Anything?” he asks when she answers, working hard to keep the panic out of his voice.

“We followed his scent into the preserve. Could have been his regular patrol, but then it just...stops. Like he never came back out again.”

“Okay. I’m at the loft; what part of the preserve are you in?”

“You’re here already? Stiles, that’s a two hour drive.”

“Yeah, well, I was motivated,” Stiles answers. “So where are you?”

“Out by the old house,” Erica admits, reluctant, like maybe she feels like she’s trespassing. And Stiles gets it; Derek had the house torn down during Stiles’ first year of college, and he talks sometimes about rebuilding, but he’s never actually done anything about it. Most of them assume it’s still too painful for him to think about – understandably so – and they don’t push the subject. But sometimes Stiles thinks Derek’s just waiting for his pack to come home, for the Alpha Mate and all his betas to be back where they belong before he moves on with his life.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“Stiles, there’s no trail to follow,” Erica says, and now she sounds apologetic. “It’s like he got so far and just vanished.”

 _Witches_ , Stiles thinks, scowling as he throws the Jeep back into gear. “I know, Catwoman. But I think I’ve got a way to find him. I’ll see you soon.”

He knows from the outside his distaste for witches doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering he's a magic user too. It’s not even all witches; he’s met a couple at college that seem alright. They haven’t tried to kill him or anyone he loves yet, anyway, which puts them miles ahead of all the other witches he’s met. The ones that come for his pack are always evil, though, and they usually want to steal power from the famed Hale pack, which usually means trying to kill one or all of them.

Going after the Alpha takes balls, Stiles will give them that. But it’s obvious they waited until most of his pack was out of town, assuming that would make him more vulnerable. And maybe they were right about that, but they didn’t count on the fact that Stiles would tear the world apart to keep Derek from ever coming to harm again.

He puts his phone on speaker while he drives, scrolling through until he finds Lydia’s number and hits dial. She’s wide awake when she picks up, which means she felt whatever’s going on all the way down at CalTech.

“Stiles?”

“Lyds, you know that spell we cast to tie the pack to the Nemeton? Can I use it to track someone?”

“What’s going on?”

“Pretty sure Derek’s been wolfnapped by another coven.”

“I hate witches,” Lydia growls in a reasonable impression of a wolf, and Stiles grins in spite of the fact that at least one of those witches is currently holding his mate hostage for reasons he doesn’t know.

“You and me both,” he answers. “And they’ve hidden their scents somehow, so I need a way to find them.”

“The Nemeton should be able to help. Take something of Derek’s with you and ask it to show you where he is. Your Spark should do the rest.”

Stiles blows out a breath, somewhere between relief and dread. “Then I just have to kill some witches.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“And it definitely won’t be the last. Thanks, Lyds.”

“Don’t mention it. Let me know what happens.”

He thanks her again and promises to call back when it’s all taken care of, then he hangs up the phone and pulls onto the dirt road that leads to the Hale property. Erica and Boyd are waiting for him when he pulls into the clearing where the house used to be, eyes glowing in the dull early predawn light.

“Hey,” he says, nodding as he reaches into the back of the Jeep for a flashlight.

“Can you really find him?” Erica asks when he joins them, and he can see the worry in both their faces even in the dim light.

“I think the Nemeton can,” he answers, ignoring the way they both shudder at the mention of the tree.

Not that he really blames them. For years that damn stump gave them nothing but grief, and instead of helping them fix it, Deaton just spouted at them about balance or whatever Druid bullshit he happened to be into that day. It took a couple years of studying his magic on his own, then with Lydia’s help, before they finally found a way to tie the Nemeton and the pack together, anchoring them both to the magic in the land and neutralizing the evil that had knocked everything out of balance to begin with.

It’s what gave the Hale Pack a reputation for being badass; between the Alpha Pack and the Darach, a Nogistune that almost cost them three pack members, and the power boost that came with being magically linked to an actual supernatural beacon, they’d developed quite a reputation. Still, it’s hard to let go of all the bad that came with the Nemeton before Stiles and Lydia fixed it, so he doesn’t blame Erica and Boyd for being a little wary. That doesn’t stop him from striding into the woods behind the clearing, following a well-worn path to the stump in the center of the preserve.

When he gets there he half expects to find Derek laid out as a sacrifice, yet another ill-advised attempt to steal the tree’s power. It wouldn’t work, of course, not when protecting the pack means protecting itself now that they’re tied together. But other supernaturals don’t know that the tree protects its own, so more than one of them have been kidnapped and strapped to the stump before the kidnappers figure out why that’s such a bad idea.

But the clearing is empty, no sign that Derek or anyone else has been here recently. Stiles lays a hand on the stump, feeling the comforting pulse of the magic rush through him before he takes off his engagement ring and lays it on the wood.

“Help me find him,” he murmurs, feels a warm answering pulse push against his Spark, and he takes a deep breath and puts his ring back on.

Instantly he feels the tug in the center of his chest, urging him deeper into the woods. Stiles follows it without question, not bothering to look back because he knows Erica and Boyd are following too.

His magic leads them toward the edge of the Hale territory, and once they pass the lake that marks the town line he knows exactly where they’re going.

“Son of a bitch,” Stiles mutters. “I keep telling Dad the county needs to tear this place down.”

Before either of the wolves can ask what he means the place in question comes into view. It’s an old hunting cabin from the days before the preserve became protected land, and these days it’s mostly used by high school kids looking to binge drink and flirt with starting forest fires. The cabin itself is in disrepair, the roof mostly gone and what passes for a door hanging off the hinges. It’s not exactly a secure place to hold an Alpha werewolf, which means they’ve done something to keep Derek weak.

The thought sends rage coursing through his veins, and he feels his Spark begin to burn beneath his skin. His vision sharpens and he knows his eyes are glowing, tiny sparks dancing on his fingertips as he fights the urge to blast the entire cabin into matchsticks.

“Stay behind me,” he orders Boyd and Erica without bothering to look over his shoulder at them. He knows they’ll listen, knows that after everything they’ve been through and all the ways he’s proven himself over the years, his position as Derek’s second is more than solid. So he keeps moving forward, and when he reaches the cabin he blasts the door off its hinges without breaking his stride.

The first thing he sees is Derek, shirtless and looking groggy and out of it on a bed in one corner of the room. There are jars of herbs and a bowl Stiles assumes they’re planning to use to mix whatever potion calls for Essence of Alpha, along with a small ritual dagger with runes carved into the handle.

There’s a woman standing next to the bed, long hair pulled back and her eyes gleaming with delight at the sight of him. “See there, Alpha, I promised your Spark would come, and here he is. Now we can begin.”

“The only thing you’re going to do is die,” Stiles growls. He catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eyes and glances toward what was once the cabin’s kitchenette. There’s another witch there, this one younger and a little nervous-looking, but she’s got some powder in one hand and he can tell she was hoping to sneak up on him and cast a spell to incapacitate him the same way they must have done to Derek.

But the joke’s on her, because Stiles knows all about how a witch’s magic works, and without her voice she can’t cast. He reaches out a hand toward her and pulls, closing his grip around thin air, but her free hand flies to her throat and her eyes go even wider.

“Quiet, the grownups are talking,” he says, then he turns back toward the witch who’s obviously in charge. “Did you really think you could best me with one other caster for backup?”

The witch narrows her eyes and reaches for the dagger next to the bed where Derek’s still more or less passed out.

“I have your Alpha. If you’d like him back, you’ll do as I say.”

“Really? That’s your big play?” Stiles asks, rolling his eyes because he really does have finals coming up, and he doesn’t need some witch with a supervillain complex threatening his mate and interrupting his study time.

She holds the dagger above her head, aiming it straight for Derek’s heart. “Do you know what this dagger is made of?”

“Let me guess. Pure silver dipped in wolfsbane? God, all you witches are so predictable,” he says, flicking a wrist toward the dagger and watching it fly out of her hand and straight into his.

“No!” she shrieks, eyes going wild when Stiles’ magic breaks through the barrier she’d set up around the bed. “That’s impossible!”

“Why, because of your cute little magic barrier? You should have done your homework, lady. You can’t cast a barrier spell anywhere in Hale territory that will keep me out. I’m tied to this land and it answers to me and _only_ me. You have no power here.”

She still looks furious and wild-eyed, but it’s clear she doesn’t have a plan B. Whatever she was planning to do to them obviously required both of them to be incapacitated, or at least for Stiles to be scared enough for Derek to cooperate.

“Boyd, can you get Derek out of here? Maybe some fresh air will help snap him out of whatever she did to him.”

Boyd nods and moves past him, not even bothering to glance at the witch as he pulls Derek into a sitting position, then helps him onto his feet. They’re nearly past Stiles when Derek pulls up short, making Boyd stumble in spite of his bulk.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah, baby, I’m right here,” Stiles says, smiling when Derek doesn’t even complain about the pet name. “You go outside with Boyd and get some fresh air while I take care of the witches, okay?”

Derek nods, swaying a little, and Stiles reaches out to press a hand to his cheek. He feels around with his Spark, but he can’t find any wolfsbane or anything else life-threatening in Derek’s system. He nods at Boyd and pulls his hand away, waiting until they’re outside before he turns back to the witch.

“Now, you’ve obviously grossly underestimated who you’re dealing with,” he says, turning the dagger in his hand as he speaks. “So you’re either really stupid, or really desperate. Which is it?”

The witch sneers at him, but he can see the fear behind her bravado. “Why should I tell you?”

“Because in spite of the fact that you just threatened to kill my fiance, if you’ve got a good enough reason I might consider not killing you.”

“I wouldn’t have killed him,” she admits begrudgingly. “We needed his seed.”

“His _seed_?” Stiles repeats, blood boiling at the very thought. “Are you telling me you were planning to _rape_ him?”

She shrugs like it’s no big deal, and it takes everything in Stiles not to blast her into nothingness right then and there.

“We require the magical child of a Spark and an Alpha werewolf. You would have been returned unharmed to your pack once the child was born.”

“Lie,” Erica growls behind him, and Stiles glances over his shoulder to see that she’s holding the other witch in a death grip.

“So you were planning to rape my fiance, kidnap me, then steal our magical baby and kill me?”

“Not kill you,” the witch says, sighing like she’s over it, like this whole clusterfuck isn’t her own fault. “We would have drained your magic as part of the sacrifice, but it’s possible you would have lived.”

“Great, so you were only _planning_ to murder my baby.”

The witch doesn’t answer, but he can tell from her expression that he’s got it right. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to know why, because he can’t imagine a reason good enough to excuse murdering a baby, magically created or not. It’s never even occurred to him that it might be possible for him to have a baby, but now that he’s thought about it he wants to rip this woman apart for even daring to threaten his potential child.

“Why?” he asks, even though he’s still not sure he wants to hear the answer.

When the witch stubbornly refuses to answer, Stiles sighs and turns to Erica. He reaches out with his magic and returns the other witch’s voice to her, then he asks the question again. “What was the endgame here?”

She darts a glance toward her coven leader, then she looks back at Stiles. “Most of our coven was destroyed last year. A more powerful sorcerer tried to take over, and when we resisted he killed almost all of us. We’re the only two left. It takes decades to build up an even halfway decent coven when you’re dealing with average magic users. We needed the power boost.”

“And murdering my baby would have given you that.”

“Are you kidding? The magically produced child of an Alpha werewolf and an accomplished Spark would be like a supernova. Combined with the power from draining your Spark, we could have been back to full strength in less than a year.”

“Yeah, well, now you’ll be dead like the rest of your sorry coven,” Stiles says.

“But we were only trying to regain what was taken from us!” she pleads, looking for all the world like she doesn’t see what the problem is.

“By trying to take what’s mine,” he reminds her. His voice is calm and even, but his eyes are glowing a brilliant violet, and he sees the panic in the little witch’s eyes the moment before her heart stops and she slumps in Erica’s arms.

He turns to the other witch, eyeing her coldly while she sneers at him. “You’re as much of a monster as those dogs you run with.”

“Lady, the only monster I see here is you,” Stiles says, then he stops her heart and watches as she crumples to the floor beside the bed. It would have been more poetic to kill her using her own dagger, but it’ll be easier for his dad to explain this way. So he wipes his fingerprints off the knife, then he sets it next to the ceremonial bowl.

“What about the bodies?” Erica asks, dropping the other witch unceremoniously to the floor.

“Leave them. I’ll make sure there’s evidence that they accidentally poisoned themselves while they were out here playing at being real witches. Then I’ll call Dad to deal with the bodies, and maybe he’ll finally get around to tearing down this dump.”

Erica flashes a toothy grin at the promise of no clean-up, then they head outside to find Boyd lounging against a tree and Derek, still looking a little worse for wear, staring a hole into the side of the cabin like he can make Stiles move faster with just his mind. When he spots them he straightens up, reaching out when Stiles is close enough and wrapping him in a tight embrace.

“Did you hear all of that?” Stiles asks, his words muffled in Derek’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Derek murmurs into his hair. “I don’t even know how they got the drop on me. I was just following a strange scent in the woods and the next thing I know I’m on a bed and I can’t move.”

“Yeah, well, they won’t be kidnapping anyone ever again,” Stiles says. He pulls away far enough to slide an arm around Derek’s waist and tug him toward the trail that will take them back to the Jeep. “Come on, let’s go home.”

* * *

They give Boyd and Erica a lift back to their apartment before he drives back to the loft, still holding Derek tight as they ride the elevator up to the top floor. The sun’s up by the time they get home, light streaming in through the huge windows in the loft. Stiles sighs when he realizes he still has to call his dad and Lydia before he can crawl into bed with Derek and sleep the rest of the day away.

He’s going to miss a day of class if he doesn’t go back to campus, but his grades are good enough that he doesn’t really care. Besides, it’s Friday, which means that he has until Sunday before he really has to leave, and the thought of leaving Derek right now makes him want to lock them both up and never leave the loft again.

He sends Derek off to shower away the stench of strange witches and whatever was on that bed while he calls Lydia to let her know the situation’s been dealt with. He leaves out the part about magical baby sacrifices, but when he thinks about it he can’t help pressing a hand over his flat stomach and wondering.

The Sheriff takes the news with less grace than Lydia does, but that’s mainly because he’s the one who has to go out into the woods and ‘discover’ the victims of an accidental poisoning. Maybe he’ll make it look like a murder/suicide, just to change things up a little. All the ‘accidental’ deaths in town have to be throwing off the county’s statistics, after all.

When he finally hangs up the phone he shuts it off and climbs the stairs to the bedroom he shares with Derek when he’s home from school. He sheds his clothes until he’s down to a pair of boxers, then he slides under the covers and burrows into a pillow that smells like Derek and home. A few minutes later the covers lift up and Derek slides in next to him wearing nothing at all, and Stiles wishes he had the energy to do anything about it.

“How’d you know to come looking for me?” Derek asks, his voice barely a whisper as he reaches out and pulls Stiles close.

“I got a bad feeling through the bond at like two in the morning. Then I called your phone and that bitch answered.”

“That must have been when I first woke up and figured out what was happening,” Derek says, his hand running up and down Stiles’ back in a soothing pattern. “It was a lot earlier when I was patrolling, so I must have been knocked out for a while.”

Stiles nods against the pillow, then he slides a little closer and slings one leg over Derek’s thighs. “I don’t like being so far away. I’m going to move home after this semester and do my last few credits long distance.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Derek asks, looking a little wounded when he pulls back to frown at Stiles.

“Of course I trust you,” Stiles answers, rolling his eyes for good measure. “That’s not the point. I was two hours away when I realized something was wrong, and by then they’d had you for hours. What if I’d been asleep and didn’t even feel the bond? I just don’t like not being here when you need me.”

“I always need you," Derek says, because he’s secretly the biggest sap who’s ever sapped. “But you’ve been two hours away for three and a half years now. One more semester won’t make that much difference.”

“Trying to get rid of me, Hale?” Stiles teases, grinning when Derek growls and drags him even closer. “Seriously, though, I was already thinking about it. I’m tired of this whole long distance thing.”

“Me too,” Derek admits. He presses a soft kiss to Stiles’ temple, then another on his cheek, then finally brushes their lips together. “I guess if you’re moving home, we can get started on rebuilding the house.”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t want to build our home without you.”

Normally Stiles would tease him about being such a sap, but considering the night Derek’s had, he decides to let it slide this one time. Instead he presses forward and plants another kiss on Derek’s lips, soft and slow and perfect.

“Once the house is done I thought we could get married there, if you want. My family always had weddings and mating ceremonies in the back yard.”

“Sounds nice,” Stiles says.

“It was,” Derek answers, his voice softening a little as sleep starts to creep up on him.

He’s quiet for long enough that Stiles thinks that’s the end of the conversation, but after a few minutes Derek’s lips brush his temple again. “Do you think it’s possible? What she was trying to do?”

His hand slides down to Stiles’ stomach, touching it reverently the same way Stiles himself had done earlier.

“Maybe. She definitely thought she could do it.” Stiles pauses and covers Derek’s hand with his own. “Why, is that something you’d want?”

Derek shrugs, but Stiles knows him well enough to know that means ‘yes’. It’s not as though they’ve never talked about kids. They both want a big family, Derek because he misses his own so much and Stiles because he was so _lonely_ as a kid. They’ve talked about adopting, maybe even a surrogate, but the idea of having a kid that's both of theirs by blood, one who would never question for a second just how wanted and loved they were...if it’s possible, there’s no way Stiles will pass that up.

“I’ll look into it. If there’s a way, I’ll find it.”

For a minute Derek just looks at him, then he reaches up and touches Stiles’ shoulder right over his mating mark. “I know you will. You’re amazing.”

Stiles smiles and closes his eyes again, snuggling a little closer as he settles in to sleep. “You’re not so bad yourself, babe.”

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Characters discuss the ritual killing of a baby that doesn't actually exist. Two minor characters are killed after threatening Derek and Stiles.
> 
> I swear not every fic I write will deal with mpreg. Every fic I write _will_ definitely be crack treated seriously, though. It's how I roll.


End file.
